Renowned MLK Jr. expert, NM native speaks on slain civil rights leader

RIO RANCHO — A former Stanford University history professor who saw Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. give his famous “I Have a Dream” speech and later published the slain civil rights leader’s papers at the request of his widow asked attendees during a luncheon on Monday to think about what they can do with their lives in the next 39 years, a reference to King’s age when he was assassinated.

Clayborne Carson’s speech came just days after what would have been King’s 96th birthday and the 40th time the federal holiday in his name was celebrated. The speech also came on Inauguration Day for President Donald Trump, who pledged in a rally Sunday to release classified documents pertaining to the assassinations of King, former President John F. Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

Carson, 80, spoke at Father Andrew D’Arco Hall, next to St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Parish, in an event hosted by the Southern Christian Leadership Council of New Mexico.

Carson is a Los Alamos native who attended the University of New Mexico for a year before transferring to University of California-Los Angeles. He was 19 in 1963, when he traveled to the nation’s capital and attended the March on Washington at the request of activist Stokely Carmichael.

Carson said that one of his greatest memories of the march was not of King, but another activist: John Lewis, the late congressman who was known for being beaten by police officers on Bloody Sunday. Lewis was only four years older than Carson, compared to King, who was in his mid-30s at the time of the march. But, Carson said, King’s speech was great oratory that created unity when the civil rights movement needed it.

“No one could have followed that speech,” Carson said.

Following the march, Carson became more involved in the civil rights movement. But what happened in 1985, a little more than two decades later, shocked him.

King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, asked Carson to edit and publish her late husband’s papers. Carson remembers asking Scott King why she picked him.

“’We need somebody very young; this is going to take a long time,’” Carson recalls her saying.

Even after four decades of scrupulous work, many of King’s papers have yet to be published, Carson said. He retired before the project’s completion, and noted it has taken longer to publish King’s papers than the time the legendary civil rights leader was alive.

If King were alive today, “He would begin to tell us that the struggle still continues,” Carson said.

Before King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, he was planning a “campaign against poverty” on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., according to Carson.

“Have we done that? I don’t think so, and I think that would be his greatest disappointment. It’s not that he wouldn’t appreciate that celebration of that first 39 years, but I’m sure he’d get up in front of you and say, ‘I’m not done yet!’” Carson said.

Since publishing King’s papers, Carson has written numerous books, traveled the world, and collaborated on a play about King’s life as well as on the winning design of the MLK Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. He is currently working on another Stanford-based effort he helped found, The World House Project Inc., a nonprofit that works toward stronger human rights and social justice through research, education and social action.

Bryan Allison, a deacon at Emmanuel Miss Baptist Church, who sang two hymns and read a quote from King, had heard of Carson before he spoke. What resonated with Allison, 42, about Carson's remarks was when he noted King’s commitment to solving poverty and hunger.

“I might have another 42 years, and I need to do the most I can in that time to impact the world,” Allison said.